Volunteering has healthy side-effects

Rachel Keller, of Holland is a patient family liaison volunteer at Harrington Hospital

Decades ago, Mary Leary of Auburn retreated to her sofa and Oprah after a hard day's work.

But seeking more fulfillment, 17 years ago she began volunteering every other month at the Mustard Seed, a soup kitchen on Piedmont Street in Worcester.

As Ms. Leary's family grew and required less of her time, she found herself at the soup kitchen more often, now to the tune of five nights a week.

She said she gets a "high" from helping others.

"Even if I have a good day, I feel even better," said Ms. Leary, whose day job is directing the YWCA's child care program. "I sleep good at night. I think about the people I saw here."

By regularly volunteering, Ms. Leary may also be improving her health.

A June 19 study by UnitedHealth Group and the Optum Institute found a link between volunteer work and better physical, mental and emotional health.

The study found that 76 percent of U.S. adults who volunteer report it has made them feel physically healthier, and 78 percent report that volunteering lowers their levels of stress, leading them to feel better than adults who do not volunteer.

Through the years, other studies have suggested that volunteer work increases self confidence, combats depression and could help people stay physically healthy, especially older adults.

On a recent Friday night, after meals were served at the soup kitchen, Ms. Leary vigorously scrubbed a countertop.

The 61-year-old said the volunteer work "keeps me moving."

Ms. Leary observed that volunteers from churches and school groups come for a night or two and move on. Therefore it's important for someone like her to have a consistent presence in the kitchen, to keep the meals flowing.

"It could get chaotic," she said.

Amy B. Wachholtz, director of health psychology at UMass Medical School in Worcester, said volunteering can help people who experience daily-life stress or even more severe mental or physical problems.

Often, helping someone else stops a person from thinking about his own problems, and this can make the volunteer's problems feel diminished, said Ms. Wachholtz, also a health psychologist at UMass Memorial Medical Center.

One tactic for helping people with, for instance, chronic pain is to recommend that the patient find a way to help others, Ms. Wachholtz said. Doing so helps the patient realize she is an active participant in the world, rather than feeling she has nothing to give back.

"It might be that they help someone else read who doesn't know how to read, or an older person who has lost their vision," said Ms. Wachholtz.

Rachel E. Keller of Holland, an 18-year-old volunteer at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge, said she'd never thought of her volunteer work as a means to improved health, but she agreed with the idea.

"It makes you feel good, it makes them (the patients) feel good, and all the employees appreciate that you're giving your time," said Ms. Keller, who also donates her time at a nursing home in Amherst. She attends the University of Massachusetts, where she is a pre-med student with a concentration in sports medicine.

For the past two months, Ms. Keller has volunteered twice weekly on four-hour shifts in the hospital's phlebotomy department.?

In addition, she recently began training as a patient family liaison in Harrington's emergency room.

In this role, Ms. Keller will try to comfort families as they wait for a hurt loved one in the ER. She will provide a family with updated information — for example, the patient has been taken to the X-ray unit, or the family can visit the patient. At times, the nurse does not have time to speak to the family, said Laura Dilts, director of Volunteers/Transport at Harrington.

The family liaison role is more closely associated with larger facilities, such as Mercy Hospital in Springfield. It is a new volunteer position at Harrington, Ms. Dilts said.

Ms. Dilts said hospitals have long relied on volunteers, and it is a point of emphasis at Harrington, which has 589 volunteers, about twice as many as hospitals of equal size.

Harrington volunteers donated an estimated 44,702 hours during fiscal 2013, a value of more than $1.2 million. The pay value for volunteer time for Massachusetts is $27.43 per hour.

Volunteers gave 137 million hours of work in the commonwealth in 2011, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service.

It was a slight decline from the previous year, but not indicative of a trend, said Emily Haber, chief executive officer at the Massachusetts Service Alliance.

Ms. Haber said organizations must continue to position themselves to use volunteers in a meaningful way. Unsuccessful volunteer situations sometimes turn a person away from volunteering.

During the difficult economy, many nonprofit organizations might have lost the resources to dedicate a staff member or a partial position to managing volunteers. Or it might have been combined with other duties, she said.

Ms. Haber said she believes most people volunteer because they are committed to a particular cause, while a "minuscule portion" does so because of a program requirement.

Nationally, the largest proportion of people volunteering are young parents connected to their children through school, sports and other activities, she said.

In addition to the health study, Ms. Haber said, another recent study linked volunteer work to increasing an unemployed person's chances of finding work.